Here are the photos that should have been in my entry about the first day in Tokyo that we spent with Rafael and Richard. Here’s the Tokyo International Forum building:

That’s Tracie and Rafael. Here’s Richard:

This is where we sat for lunch near the beach:

No, I have no idea what dogs have to do with coffee. Maybe the idea is that you stop here for coffee while walking your dog in the sun, and feed it a fish?

Here we are getting ready for lunch. It was windy, as you can see. The wind blew away several pieces of nori (dried seaweed) before we could eat them. read more

Sad but true: there’s no more cucumber Pepsi to be had. Richard asked a friend in Tokyo about it and forwarded the sad news on to me:

“He said that every summer Pepsi makes a one-off limited edition flavor. Last year’s was cucumber. He tried it – and said it was weird. At first you get a scent and initial taste of cucumber, which subsides into a melon flavor, along with the cola. I guess the melon taste makes sense, cause cucumbers are related. He didn’t say he drank more than one – so I guess it was more for the novelty.” read more

Sorry, no new entry today. I’m too tired. We visited four different temples and one museum today, and we’re wiped out. On top of that we had the excitement of buying shoes in a foreign country. (Tracie discovered that she’s worn out the sole of one of the boots she’s been wearing; if she doesn’t stop wearing it now she’ll damage it irreparably.)

I believe that it’s something of an FAQ in the U.S.: What do people in Asian countries have for breakfast? Once we learn that they eat seemingly strange things like raw fish and seaweed, breakfast foods seem particularly mysterious. Based on the breakfasts I’ve had today and yesterday, both of which were described as Japanese, the short version of the answer is fish, rice, and pickled things. Here’s a photo of what I had for breakfast today, delivered via room service at the Hotel Granvia: read more

Nevermind what I said previously about reverse-chronological order; it looks like I’m going to skip around. Here are photos from our day in Asakusa. It might be interesting to look at last year’s photos from the same area and compare the foliage. We were here earlier in the spring last year, and the cherry trees were blooming. This year they’ve finished blooming, but more plants have leafed out and other flowers are blooming.

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Tracie just flipped through the photos in the previous post and suggested in no uncertain terms that I’m an “idiot” for not putting in any of me. So, here are two photos of me:

Here’s the first batch of photos. I guess I’ll at least start by going in reverse-chronological order. We’ve already taken over 900 photos so it’s a little daunting to decide where to begin when picking some to post, but I’ll just dive in.

Here are photos from Hase-dera temple and its surroundings. I’m not going to comment on each photo here; if you have questions, post a comment and I’ll try to answer. The photos are essentially in the order in which we saw things, so there are photos of the garden at both the beginning and the end. read more

This is a test… Just one photo:

Let’s see whether this works. If it works, I’ve found the problem. (The problem was that the default timeout parameter in BlogDesk’s site properties is too short for a dial-up connection.)

We’re now in Kyoto. Tracie sums up our feelings about the Hotel Granvia with one word: home. She uttered this monosyllable just after one of the cadre of impeccably polite, uniformed young women showed us to our room (thanking us three times for waiting, once for the elevator’s arrival, once for its ascent, and once for her to open the door), gave us our keys (which are disposable electronic cards), explained our breakfast coupons and choices, wished us a pleasant stay, bowed at least twice, became all smiley and bowed several more times after we mentioned that this was our second stay, and departed. On the desk I found a small greeting card addressed to Tracie. It was printed with text welcoming us and telling us that the hotel will do everything they can to make our stay pleasant, and it was hand-signed by the general manager. We love this place. It is indeed our home away from home. read more

Today we visited the Hase-dera temple near Kamakura. Hase is also the home of the Daibutsu, the great statue of Buddha that we visited last year. (Actually we visited two great statues of Buddha last year. The one at Hase is the one that’s outdoors and is greenish with verdigris.) We intended to go to the temple last year also but didn’t make it because it was rather hot and reaching it entails a climb up a number of stone steps. Today it was our main goal, and fortuitously the weather was cool so Tracie had little trouble making the ascent. read more